The Honest Company Lawsuits: Here's What You Need to Know

Jessica Alba founded the super-successful Honest Company with a goal of creating cleaning and personal products that are more environmentally friendly and safer than mainstream brands, and with a mission to do so with transparency and, well, honesty. But now her company has been accused of being dishonest about what its products contain. Last week a Missouri woman filed a lawsuit against the Honest Company, claiming the company falsely marketed the ingredients in its liquid laundry detergent, dish soap, and multisurface cleaner, among other products. The woman claims that although Honest says its products are free of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), they are in fact not. This lawsuit is the second against Honest this month for false advertising over the same ingredient, which follow a Wall Street Journal article published earlier this month that reported the findings of two independent lab tests (commissioned by the newspaper), both of which found that Honest's laundry detergent does, in fact, contain SLS. One of the labs told The Wall Street Journal that its test for SLS "found about the same concentration as Tide, which is made by P&G. 'It was not a trace amount,' said Matthew Hynes, a chemist at Chemir who conducted

Jessica Alba founded the super-successful Honest Company with a goal of creating cleaning and personal products that are more environmentally friendly and safer than mainstream brands, and with a mission to do so with transparency and, well, honesty. But now her company has been accused of being dishonest about what its products contain.

Last week a Missouri woman filed a lawsuit against the Honest Company, claiming the company falsely marketed the ingredients in its liquid laundry detergent, dish soap, and multisurface cleaner, among other products. The woman claims that although Honest says its products are free of sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), they are in fact not.

This lawsuit is the second against Honest this month for false advertising over the same ingredient, which follow a Wall Street Journal article published earlier this month that reported the findings of two independent lab tests (commissioned by the newspaper), both of which found that Honest's laundry detergent does, in fact, contain SLS. One of the labs told The Wall Street Journal that its test for SLS "found about the same concentration as Tide, which is made by P&G. 'It was not a trace amount,' said Matthew Hynes, a chemist at Chemir who conducted the test."

Alba responded to the article in a blog post on her company's site, saying she was disappointed by the "misrepresentations" about The Honest Company in the Journal's article: "As part of the Honestly Free Guarantee, we chose to use Sodium Coco Sulfate (SCS) in our laundry detergent because it's a gentler and less irritating alternative than what's used in many other detergents. Using SCS in our detergent is just one example of Honest going the extra mile to create safe and effective products that all of us can feel confident about using with our families and in our homes."

According to the Journal, when reporters spoke to the Honest Company's manufacturing partners and suppliers, there seemed to be discrepancies over what "zero SLS content" meant the farther up the line they went. Honest provided a document from its detergent manufacturer, Earth Friendly Products LLC, that certified there was "zero SLS content" in the product. Earth Friendly said that document came from its chemical supplier, Trichromatic West Inc., who essentially told the Journal it didn't test for SLS, and saw no reason to, but that the "zero SLS content" listing was because it didn't add SLS to the material sent to Earth Friendly, and as such, said the product in question "was fairly and honestly represented" to its customer.

Its unclear whether the tests could have picked up sodium coco sulfate—which reportedly starts with a blend of fatty acids from coconut oil instead of one lauryl alcohol—and recognized it as sodium lauryl sulfate. Or whether the slight chemical variation would even matter: The Journal's article reported that Proctor & Gamble "said it had 'no issue' with the level of SLS the tests found in Tide," and that while Honest has proudly marketed the lack of SLS in its products "as a way to distinguish its products as safer than rivals', there has long been debate about whether SLS is harmful. In its pure form SLS can cause skin rashes, but many consumer products companies, including P&G, Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Seventh Generation Inc., have vouched for its safety when used in their products."

Curious about other companies facing major lawsuits from their consumers? Check out our coverage on the lawsuits against Starbucks and Johnson & Johnson.